Friday, 28 August 2015

Hello everyone~! It is nearly the end of August, this summer really flew by so fast! Part of it for me was a lot of fun, and part of it was work. A bit of the fun part is the new cat we are fostering a pregnant cat we found in our backyard. She is super sweet and she is so close to having kittens, which will be an extra bundle of fun. :) The other good part about having the cat here is that I have been spending a lot of time in my room with her, working on my Zazzle, Redbubble & Zippi shops and making new designs. I am already planning out halloween and christmas designs, because I missed those seasons last year! I am excited to add them. I have also been working on the new Zazzle shopfront, and catching up on some stuff I missed during my hiatus.

One of the things I have updated is the addition of collections in my Zazzle shop. Today I am going to share one of my favourite collections, my Purple Home Decor collection! I have created a collection of all the items in my shop that match with a purple home colour theme. These items are things that are for kitchens, living room, bedrooms & family rooms. I have also made themes for blue & green, pink & red, yellows, brown & orange, rainbow & multi coloured and white & black.
The purple collection features items from my newest Zazzle design - the star maze pattern!
Here is the new collection, as well as some of the new home decor items from my lavender star maze pattern.

Friday, 21 August 2015

Can you believe August is already halfway through? School will be starting soon in September, and back to school shoppers are hitting the stores to prepare their kids with awesome school supplies. Back when I was a kid we had these boring fabric lunch bags that weren't very spill proof, so if your juice box got punctured in your bag somehow or your plastic baggie wasn't closed well enough, food and juice was spilt all over your lunchbox - making everything sticky and sometimes leaking on to books & homework! Eww! So when I saw that I can design super sleek lunch boxes on Zazzle, I got really excited. The lunch boxes on Zazzle are really neat and 100% customizable, created by Yubo in San Ramon, California. Here is what it looks like:

Look at how cute they are! This one is featuring my new purple geometric pattern,
as well as a personalized monogram with a name. If your name is going to have to be on your lunch box,
it might as well be pretty! ;)

Not only are these incredibly cute, they are 100% dishwasher safe (easy to clean, so you will never have yucky, sticky, crumb filled lunch bags again!) and also BPA-free, phthalate-free, lead-free & eco-friendly. These come with containers to hold your food and different containers can be purchased that fit perfectly within this lunch box. The default one at Zazzle comes with a sandwich container and two small containers, but you can choose to add on a pack of two small containers or a pack of two medium containers. It also comes with a perfect fit ice pack, to keep your food cold throughout the day. On top of all that, you can adjust the handle to be vertical or horizontal! What I like best however, is that you can change out the faceplate of these lunch boxes. This is such a good idea for kids especially, who get tired of the same old lunch box theme and want something new from time to time. It is much better than buying a new lunchbox every season! Extra faceplate inserts can also be purchased through Zazzle. Here is a look at what the lunch box looks like disassembled:

The front and back face plates of the lunch box are fully printed with designs and can be easily swapped out. When you are creating your Yubo lunch box through Zazzle, you can personalize the designs yourself by adding additional pictures & graphics and also by choosing the colour of the outer casing! You can choose from blue, green orange, pink, purple, and grey, so there are plenty of colours to match your design. If you want to find out more about Yubo and their lunch boxes, visit the FAQ page on their website by clicking here!

Wednesday, 12 August 2015

I have started updating my Zazzle shop again, woohoo! My work is cut out for me this month. I missed at least 8 new products during my off time, and have made so many designs since then! I am going to share with you some of my new fabric designs, but first I want to talk about the new shop I set up! :) Here it is:

My new shop is going to be dedicated to all the nature pictures I take in Canada. It will be landscapes, plants, animals & insects mainly. Sometimes I will include pictures of animals that aren't native to Canada, but that I took on my journeys around Canada. My last adventure was to New Brunswick, where it mostly rained but I got some lovely photos from the Zoo, the tourist sites we went to, and of course the gorgeous landscape. I am really excited to be able to do something with my nature photography, other than just staring at it! ;)
I will be working on getting my photos on this shop bit by bit, while also working on my TanyaDraws shop.

And I have been updating that shop, as well! I have about 50 new patterns to add to fabrics, so my fabric collection on tanyadraws shop will be ginormous when I am done. On top of that, I also have some new designs to add to all products, such as my lily of the valley pattern & my rainbow chevron hearts collection. I also never tried Zazzle collections, so I am going to be utilizing that tool very soon to see what the commotion is over that. I will be busy busy busy! Luckily though, I recently adopted a new cat from our backyard (she was a stray!) and we took her to the vet to find out she is pregnant and will be having kittens! So the upcoming days (maybe weeks) I am spending some time with her in my room, rather than out and about like I would be usually.... giving me some time to work on some stuff.

As for the fabrics, most of the patterns I have to upload this time are abstract, decorative patterns. These patterns are perfect for fabrics! You can customize the pattern to be larger or smaller print, depending on what effect you want to have. I also have a collection of patterned heart patterns coming up, where the background will be customizable. :) Here are some of the patterns I have added so far!!

Chevron rainbow hearts! I decided to take an existing pattern and add it toa heart shape, making a unique heart pattern. I can see this one being populararound valentines day, and I would love to one day see it on a dress!!This pattern looks great on white, but try it on a blacks, purples & greysfor a completely new effect.

This pattern is really fun! It is inspired by 3D glasses and also has apicnic inspired look. The colours really pop and the pattern of starshapes and overlapping colours makes it endlessly interesting!

Another variation of the 3D glasses inspired pattern! This one has ringsof overlapping colour, and a vintage cream colour can be seen in the backgroundmore so than the first pattern. This is a fun pattern but is definitely more controlled!

I made this pattern around Canada Day, and since I was unsure about uploading productsat the time, I didn't add it to my shop! So this is a little late.. but at least it will be on my shopfor next years Canada day! The watercolour leaves are a modern twist on the traditionalbright red maple leaf.

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Hey guys! Earlier on in the week I mentioned that I had joined another print on demand website. That print on demand site is UK based Zippi! After my experience with USA international tax treaty misunderstandings at US based Zazzle, I decided that the next print on demand I join would be one that is not based in the USA, because that whole situation was a nightmare! Zippi is also a great choice for people currently living in Europe because shipping will be cheaper for you if you choose to purchase something.... and with more affordable and quicker shipping you will probably be more comfortable and likely to refer people you meet in real life to your art shop. Zippi is a relatively new POD, the first blog post on their page dating June 2014, which means they have room to grow and they look very promising!
Here are some key things you should know about Zippi if you are thinking of joining.

1. Ownership and Royalty Rates
The first thing I looked at before I joined Zippi was the terms & conditions to find out what the rules are - you would be surprised how many PODs I have stumbled upon that want exclusive rights to your work or want to have full copyright! Thankfully with Zippi they state very clearly that we keep the rights to our own work. As with all print on demand websites, we are granting them permission to use our art to print and sell it. In their terms and conditions you will also see that they are strict on intellectual property - that is, all the work you submit must be your own and must not be infringing on anyone elses' copyright.

As for royalty rates, they are set at a fixed 20%, which is my go to amount for print on demand anyways. Your royalties are payable 30 days after Zippi has been paid by the customer. As usual, if a customer cancels their order or returns an item, you will not be paid royalties for that. If in the future Zippi does change their royalty rules, they will provide 30 days notice via email.. so make sure you always have an up to date email on this print on demand website!

2. Browsing the Marketplace
There are a few ways to browse art on Zippi. The first and probably most common thing customers would browse is their "find art" page located right next to the Zippi logo on the header. When you go to this area, there are seemingly random designs (I am not sure if they are sorted by most popular or most sold - I just know they are not the newest ones) and there are four main categories: For him, for her, nautical designs & british designs.

The second way people browse is by clicking on the product they want, and then browsing art from there. The product view search has a more detailed and directed search function, allowing customers to further narrow their search by sorting designs by theme & collections. This is probably the easiest way to search for specific styles of artwork, and where the collections & descriptions you use will have the most importance.

The third way that people can browse art is browsing by artist on Zippi's Artist Portfolio page. Here is where you can have a quick look at a sample artwork from each artist if you are looking for a particular style. At this time as far as I can tell, Zippi takes the first piece you upload as your sample for this page, so make sure you add one you feel represents you the best!

One thing I am not sure about is how they determine the rankings for all of the marketplace sections. It would be nice to be able to sort them by popular, best sellers, newest etc. It is a new platform and growing, so we may see more implemented in the future!

3. Your Portfolio & Adding work
Zippi has a simple way to add your art to all their products. While it offers no customer customization, it does make a process that is quick for artists, allowing you more time to promote your shop & make new artwork. Adding work to your portfolio is super easy. Go to "My Account" and then click on "Portfolio" to see and edit your existing designs and to add a new one. Zippi accepts artwork between 400kb and 25MB in .jpg or .png format. Once you upload your picture & create a title for it, you can select which products you want to sell your artwork on, and also edit how the products will look on a variety of sized items. If you don't like how your design is being displayed on products, clicking "edit" for a particular version allows you the option to upload your own resized design, giving you full creative control.

Once you are done fitting your design to products, you will have to select up to three themes that your design falls into, and you will have to describe your design. You only have a limited amount of words to describe your design in, so i suggest using keywords separated by comma that will help your search ranking.

Once your work is successfully added, you can view it in your public portfolio page! The portfolio page is clean and simple, featuring your artist bio & photo at the top. Here is a sample of what it looks like:

Zippi is off to a great start with a wide variety of products to design and purchase. They offer iPhone, iPad & laptop skins & cases, placemats, keychains, mugs, jigsaw puzzles, messenger bags, tote bags, mugs, canvas prints and device sleeves.... and they are sure to add more products in the future!

3. First Impression Overall
Zippi has a lot of good things going for it. I love the clean interface, from adding products to viewing them in the portfolio and on the website. They are also new and growing, which gives you the advantage of growing with them. I love their product selection as well and am especially excited that they have iPad sleeves! Zippi also has a great social media presence, and are also very quick to respond to inquiries through their website- it is always such a good feeling to find a print on demand that actually communicates! Finally, they have fantastic reviews from customers about their service and products. View the reviews here. Knowing that your designs will be printed properly and on good quality products is definitely a breath of fresh air!

If I could change something to make Zippi perfect it would be to add more ways to sort and view artwork in the marketplace (ex. Newest, Popular, Best Sellers etc) to give designers a way to see what is selling, what is popular, and a chance to show up on a new artwork feed. Another thing that some other print on demand websites have that I love is social media quick share buttons as well as quick code to paste into websites & forums! Self promotion is always important and the ability to share things quickly makes a huge impact on how much promoting you can do & how much extra traffic you can drive to your print on demand portfolio.

Overall Zippi is a very solid print on demand website, and I know it will grow to be even better. I am new to it right now but if all goes well, Zippi will be one of my main print on demand shops!

Do you use Zippi? What are your thoughts on it? Feel free to share your shop and your comments below!

Monday, 3 August 2015

It is time to review what happened this month in my POD journey! Its been quite an up and down month with dealing with the W-8 BEN form drama on Zazzle, but I can officially say that after 8 months my form has finally been cleared and I can start collecting earnings from Zazzle. I went through 1 lost form, 1 mistake form & lots and lots of waiting (the first form I submitted got "lost", I waited two months with no response from Zazzle before I finally called them and they told me to submit a new one) before the W-8 BEN rules changed, which I then had to go through more waiting and more back and forth with Zazzle before finally I was able to submit a form with all they needed. Now we are still waiting to see if the W-8 BEN rules will change again, but I am in the clear right now and I am happy for that!

With all that behind me (hopefully for at least another two years!!) I can focus my spare time on promoting my products and adding new designs rather than filling out silly forms and reading icky IRS procedures. I actually broke out the watercolour paints in July and started working on some bird paintings! I was a little rusty but it was so refreshing to be working in paint again. I am pretty far behind on the uploading but I really want to get new designs added to my shops soon.

As for my actual shops this month? I added some new designs to Redbubble, that is it! Zazzle has been on hold & Nuvango has reached the maximum amount of designs. I am actually currently working on a new POD shop as well, so I have been adding lots of designs to that. I will be introducing it soon, when it is ready! :)

Well, there is nothing much to say about my Nuvango shop. Nuvango did add a new product, leggings, but it seems they select certain designs for them and it is unclear yet if these will be available to all designs eventually, or if they will be a curated collection. I am part of a pretty nice Facebook group of Nuvango artists and I keep up to date with the new artwork & the community! Aside from that, not being able to add past 30 designs mixed with no new products means there is not very much left for me to do with this shop.

My sale this month was a 13" macbook pro skin in Tri-Colour geometric pattern!
Not only is this my most liked pattern, it is also my most sold. :) This design is currently
exclusive to my Nuvango account, too!

My redbubble shop continues to grow! Not only am I adding new designs there, RedBubble continues to add new products such as their recent scarves, hardcover notebooks, pouches & more! I always get really excited whenever Redbubble adds a new product, because their shipping is actually affordable for us Canadians (In comparison to other PODs I have checked, of course) and I see these as products I can actually purchase and see in person and give as gifts. It took a long time to actually get a sale on my RedBubble shop in comparison with my other PODs, but I am so glad I kept updating it anyways because it has now surpassed my Nuvango shop and now has 1/4 of the sales I have had on Zazzle. I consider this pretty good, because I really don't do as much sharing and advertising of my redbubble shop as I have done with Zazzle!

Sales: 4

Advertising/Sharing: Small amount of sharing on Wanelo due to a glitch. Every design I upload I pin 1 product to Wanelo, and two + to pinterest.

I sold my first t-shirt on Redbubble. I am super happy for whoever bought it.
I am so glad that someone is going to be rocking this cat pun on an actual
t-shirt somewhere in the world!!

I sold another cat to be kitten me right meow pillow! :) I created it in pink, too,
but I still love this colour best and i think it will continue to be a popular colour.
It is a nice accent colour that is bright but neutral and it matches lots of the more popular
room colour palettes.

Sold another cat to be kitten me right meow pouch. :) I love this light, mojito coloured
lime green! I am really going to aim to make more of my products in this colour.

I usually sell this pattern in pineapple sticker version only, so I was really
happy that someone bought it as a phone case! This is still one of my favourite
created patterns to date and I am so glad someone else enjoys it too. :)

Last but not least, my Zazzle shop! Again, like last month with the insecurity as to whether I would actually be paid or not, I did minimal stuff on my shop. Not adding any new designs or products seems to not really have a negative effect so far on my shop. I might possibly be missing out on sales for things I haven't added yet, and I am not on the rankings for Zazzles new items, but my old designs seem to be viewed & purchased quite often with me doing minimum sharing and advertising. I am even up in sales from last month! Now that this whole W-8 BEN fiasco is over, I will once again be focusing a chunk of my free time to updating my Zazzle shop.

This is the first time I have sold USB sticks, and I sold two of them, upgraded,in this design! Don't be concerned with the turtles, this USB is pretty fast! :-) Thewatercolour turtle print is there for cuteness only. This USB features a personalizedmonogram as well!

A happy cat lover out there has a brand new iPhone 6 case! Thetext in the heart can be customized to say whatever you want, or boththe text and heart can be removed to leave the cute kitten background.The background colour can also be customized!

Sold a roll of this pineapple print wrapping paper. :) Wrapping paper isgreat for its traditional use of wrapping gifts, but you can use it for a variety ofcrafts and even home decor projects! As usual, you can change the backgroundcolour to be whatever you want.

Sold 5 of these tropical watercolour pineapple hair ties! This is alsothe first time I have sold hair ties on Zazzle. These are perfect for beach go-ersin the summer months for holding back your beach waved hair! Personalizethe colour of the background for hair ties that match different outfits.

That is pretty much it for my shops this month! I am really liking the direction things are going, and am so happy with what I have been designing lately as a result. :) Not only is it fantastic that people like my designs, I am also experimenting a lot more than I did this time last year and I feel much more comfortable with my skills. Thank you to my customers and to those who promote my items, I really appreciate it!

About My Blog

Hello, and welcome to my blog! I'm Tanya, an illustrator and graphic designer. I love creating cute, decorative and feminine designs from my illustrations. I design products for sale on my print on demand shops, based all around the world! (Listed Below!)